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Kootenai Health, Lewis-Clark State College partner for nursing
education
By Marc Stewart
Angela Korver is
good nurse – she wants to be a better nurse.
Korver returned
to school last year with the goal of earning her bachelor’s of
nursing degree from Lewis-Clark State College.
“It’s the
industry trend that nurses will be required to have their bachelor’s
degree,” said Korver, who earned her associate’s degree from North
Idaho College in 2003. “I love the education, and the fact I am
doing it in my natural setting.”
She is one of 27 registered
nurses who enrolled in a new nursing cohort program established by
Lewis-Clark State College and Kootenai Heath.
“Nurses want
to help people,” Korver said. “Increasing my education is going to
allow me to able to make a difference in the lives of my patients.”
Jan Moseley, Director of Nursing Systems, Operations and Innovation
at Kootenai, said the hospital’s goal is improve patient outcomes
with increased education.
“There are studies that show
mortality rates are less, declines in surgical infections and
shorter periods of hospitalization with nurses who have their
four-year degrees,” Moseley said. “Nurses are in the best positions
to coordinate patient care because they’re here with patients all
the time. It’s hard for a nurse who has two years of experience to
be the center of a team where everyone else has a graduate degree.”
The program is quickly catching on with nurses at Kootenai
Health. To date, 30 additional nurses have registered in the LCSC-KH
cohort. They will begin classes in the fall. Kootenai employs
roughly 540 registered nurses and of those nurses – roughly 40
percent have earned a bachelor’s degree.
“We’ve created a
vision and a timetable for 80 percent of nurses to have a bachelor’s
degree of nursing by 2020,” Moseley said. “We want our nurses who
have their associate degree from North Idaho College to realize that
their two-year degree is a start -- not a finish. We want our nurses
to continue their education.”
As part of the agreement, LCSC
reduced tuition costs by 25 percent for Kootenai employees pursuing
a bachelor’s of nursing degree. The discount doesn’t apply to lower
general education coursework.
“Lewis-Clark State College
responded to the needs of our students and to the expectations of
our Coeur d’Alene community,” said Cyndie Hammond, the executive
director of LCSC-Coeur d’Alene. “Higher education needs to be able
to move quickly and adapt to the marketplace. This partnership is a
reflection of that spirit, and we’re thrilled knowing that the
program will grow.”
Susan O’Donnell, a LCSC assistant nursing
professor, spends a portion of her week at the hospital to provide
hands-on instruction.
“Personally, I love being involved with
the nurses enrolled in my classes,” O’Donnell said. “They are
dynamic and motivated. I try and stress to them that we are all
lifelong learners - and I think they appreciate that.”
Moseley said the college was able to adapt its nursing program,
which is delivered online, to meet the needs of the hospital.
“We came up with a hybrid of online courses and classes here,”
Moseley said. “I think big institutions like hospitals and colleges
can be pretty clunky. This is an example of two big institutions not
being the status quo. We both said, ‘Hey this is where we need to go
and this is what we can do to get there.’”
Marc Stewart is the
public information coordinator for Lewis-Clark State College Coeur
d’Alene. He can be reached at (208) 292-2684 or
mwstewart@lcsc.edu
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Members of the media please contact Marc Stewart at (208)
292-2684 |
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